Mrągowo – Bus Station

Located over the road from the town’s railway station (which is closed) is this beautiful bus station. Well, it’s not beautiful, but it does have buses and coaches.

Here are the extensive facilities that are provided to passengers.

I like how professionally the signage has been amended to show that there’s one fewer bus operating. I’m sure Arriva can provide something a little better than this.

A nice coach pulls up, I wonder whether this is my luxury transportation.

No, this is. I irritated myself (which is rare) by struggling with what the coach driver was saying to me, which was simply asking whether I wanted the central bus station in Szczytno or a suburb, and I only realised what he meant as I sat down.

Anyway, the driver was really helpful and everything ran like clockwork in terms of the timing. What really impressed me was that Mobilis, the operating company, had e-ticketing. I was the only passenger using it, but this technological advance is beyond some companies in the UK.

The ticket from Mrągowo to Szczytno took around an hour and cost the equivalent of around £2.50. One of the disadvantages over recent years with the Polish economy growing is that more people can afford cars, which is presenting huge problems for public transport companies in operating their routes. Perhaps the best hope is for an influx of tourists to remoter parts of Poland, as otherwise there’s the risk that both railway and coach stations will be closed down.